She's also playing "an Afro-Latina from the Bronx" alongside Anthony Mackie and Oscar-winning "Idol" alum Jennifer Hudson. Sparks is already working on her next movie, an independent film called "The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete" directed by George Tillman Jr. My shoulders are a little tense, but at the same time, I feel like it's just a blessing. "Now, all of the things that she was going to do have fallen on my shoulders and the rest of the cast. "It was going to be our first round of interviews to talk about ‘Sparkle,'" Sparks says. Sparks learned Houston died just before they were due to walk the red carpet at Clive Davis' pre-Grammys party. That's crazy.' Watching the movie now with her not here, it holds even more weight," Sparks says, pausing to rub some goose bumps that have emerged on her arm. "That was the scene where she says, ‘Was my life not enough of a cautionary tale for you?' I remember standing there and her saying that and going, ‘Whoa. Sparks remembers that it was filmed late at night, and she was surprised that Houston was so effortlessly able to switch between yelling in character and joking around on set. One of the toughest scenes for Sparks to film involved Houston's character confronting her daughters after discovering that they have formed a group against her wishes. It's serving as a tribute to the superstar. With Houston gone, "Sparkle" has become more than a potential breakout moment for Sparks. 11 after accidentally drowning in a hotel room bathtub on the eve of the Grammy Awards authorities said her death was complicated by cocaine use and heart disease. "It was something to watch and something I didn't want to mess with because it created an emotional bond that plays over into their performances." "It was nice to see Jordin, who was new to this Whitney, who was a veteran and an icon and in between Carmen and Tika, who were willing to listen and learn from one of the best," says director Salim Akil. She didn't have a chance to work with an acting coach, but she nervously memorized the entire script, including the parts of Sparkle's older sisters, played by Carmen Ejogo (" Love's Labour's Lost" ) and Tika Sumpter (" One Life to Live" ).Īs if starring in her first feature film wasn't nerve-racking enough, she learned that Whitney Houston, who had been working for 12 years with producer Debra Martin Chase to remake "Sparkle," would be playing her strict churchgoing mother, Emma, who turned her life around after battling her own demons. Sparks first auditioned for the part last July, scored the role in August and started rehearsing in September. "Sparkle," which opens Friday, tells the story of a Detroit singing sibling group attempting to break into the music industry in 1968. "Music always took precedence though," Sparks says, casually hugging her leg while parked on a chair inside a Beverly Hills hotel suite recently. Besides a couple of guest starring stints on tween TV shows and numerous drama club and community theater credits, she also had a 12-week run in the Broadway musical "In the Heights" in 2010. Sparks refers to herself as a "theater geek" : The Phoenix-born singer says she saw the musical revue "Smokey Joe's Cafe" on Broadway "like seven or eight times" while growing up in New Jersey during football season (Sparks' father, Phillippi Sparks, played for the New York Giants). "Sparkle" represents her growth as an actress as well. She's grown up in that time, losing her chubby teen frame for a svelte sexy figure, and has a regular boyfriend in fellow singer Jason Derulo. Sparks won the "Idol" crown at the age of 17 and is now 22. I know something about a girl who did that as well." She's a girl with a dream, and she's gonna do whatever it takes to get to the top. "My agent sent it to me and said, ‘What do you think? Do you wanna audition?' I read the script and fell in love with it. "I was in this weird limbo and ‘Sparkle' just fell into my lap," Sparks says. Unable to record a new album and uncertain of her future, Sparks looked to another passion – acting. The way Sparks tells the story of how she became the title character in a remake of the 1976 musical "Sparkle" is that her music career was unexpectedly in flux last year while she was parting ways with her management and her label was undergoing a shake-up. However, for bubbly sixth season "American Idol" champion Jordin Sparks, the jump from stage to screen just, well, kinda happened. | When most singers make the leap from recording artist to movie star, it's usually a well-calculated career maneuver that requires show-business acumen from an army of agents, acting coaches, managers and publicists.
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